ISLAMABAD: After thoroughly reviewing the Omicron situation globally, it was decided by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Monday to extend the travel ban on nine more countries, taking the total to 16 countries, mostly European and African.
The NCOC made the decision after revising the Category C, which places a blanket ban on travel, unless absolutely necessary in certain conditions. Croatia, Ukraine, Hungary, Ireland, Slovenia, Netherlands, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and Poland are the latest countries to have been added in the list.
According to the latest regulations, incoming flights from the countries in the list are banned. The NCOC further announced that all the passengers testing positive will have to undergo a 10-day quarantine with another round of PCR testing to be conducted on the eighth day.
The NCOC has been actively monitoring the situation and imposing more border control in order to buy more time to prepare against the Omicron variant. The NCOC head Asad Umar had previously admitted that it was inevitable that Omicron would find its way to Pakistan soon and the country had only two-three weeks of time to prepare against it.
STATS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS
The data on the NCOC website states that 42,944 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, of which a total of 336 people tested positive for the virus.
Ten people lost their lives and 862 remain in critical care. Eight hundred and fifty-eight people recovered from the virus in the last 24 hours.